The Hi Fi revolution

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the What HiFi community: the world's leading independent guide to buying and owning hi-fi and home entertainment products.
Oh, and then see if you can find on EBay a couple of those BT mains conditioning units. To plug all your Hi-Fi into and be prepared to be totally amazed at how it makes for a Crystal clear isolated 'signal path' through everything.

(No leakage of mains current, ripple, improved capacitance performance)
 
Tarquinh:
you will always need high quality speakers and high quality amplifiers,this won't change, the changes are in the cable market and CD playermarket, people still love vinyl, tubes etc.

ÿ

Yes, but amplifiers will be combined with a DAC and wireless into the speakers. Separates as we know them are a dying breed.

As Chebby (I think) said it's going to take a long, long time until HDD based music will begin to have any dominance in the hifi market. When the manufacturers see that CD player sales are falling (not related to the economy) they will listen, but I think on the whole it's a very stagnant industry. There are a few firms that take the baton but hardly any of them are 'traditional' manufacturers or they charge us an arm and a leg for providing us with badged boxes of technology we could do without for a fraction of the price.

One step at a time but we'll get there. Viva la revolucion, for none of them travel backwards.ÿ
 
Personally I see the computer simply as another source; or as a storage medium. I have been using a squeezebox for some time now. I have a Mac Pro with 4 1 terabyte drives and stream my music to it using flac files. It truly works well, and I am able to have the computer in it's own room. I still enjoy having the hi-fi system as a separate system and really have no desire to put the computer with it.
 
WestCoastFun:Personally I see the computer simply as another source; or as a storage medium. I have been using a squeezebox for some time now. I have a Mac Pro with 4 1 terabyte drives and stream my music to it using flac files. It truly works well, and I am able to have the computer in it's own room. I still enjoy having the hi-fi system as a separate system and really have no desire to put the computer with it.

I too must vote "eh"? when it comes to people talking about loud PCs. It goes without saying if you're a serious gamer that you're machine may be loud, but i would also back up those who have said self builds are generally inferior, and it certainly doesnt pay financially to make your own machine nowadays anyways.

thats just me, dont take it personal, like.
 
Hughes123:When using i-tunes or other media players, I find they pause a bit between tracks and for albums by Pink Floyd, Yes, Genesis etc...that's no good!

Read this

Edit - though admittedly there is a knack to it - you have to select the whole album in, say, grid view, and play it - if you do it in a playlist you get a tiny gap.
 
They don't and I doubt if Hughes' PC ever peaks at 1200W.

thfcwestlower:

I didnt realise Computers drew that much current, what about a laptop?

I used to have a pair of Bryston mono-blocs, the power consumption was frightening!
 
Yes I know. I assumed you had a 1200W PSU but that doesn't mean that your rig is using or even peaking at 1200W. What makes you sure its consuming so much?
 
Breeder:Yes I know. I assumed you had a 1200W PSU but that doesn't mean that your rig is using or even peaking at 1200W. What makes you sure its consuming so much?

I'm going to measure it, hold on a few secs...
 
Hughes123:I'm going to measure it, hold on a few secs...

Ee-eww!

This is what I feared it was all about.

Sounds like these guys with Lateral-G meters in their mid-life-crisis-mobiles who download the results from their commute to impress the other blokes at work with how craaaazy they can drive!
 
Mine eats them dang watts for breakfast, chews em up and spits em out grrrrrrr
 
According to my wall watt meter thing, it was drawing (whilst I loaded Flight Sim X) 1097watts.
 
trevor79:Hughes123:Tony_R:
Wow I must be slow today - there were no less than 5 other posts whilst I was writing mine.

This is the Sony player I was referring to.

Tony.

Okay, I'm going to see if I can demo one of those (my local Sony shop will have one hopefully!)

PjPro, my soundcard is a Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro.

I would point you to the Sony RDR970 which has a 250g HD, plus upscales TV to 1080p, it has been given 5 stars by the What Hi-Fi team.
Can be had for £300ish.

Will never buy a CD player again.

RDR-HXD995 now. Has replaced the 970 but, apart from the addition of a card slot is a very similar machine. I've just got one. Not using it for audio but its a cracking piece of kit that I've purchased confidently having sold many 970s and 995s.
 
That's great but the point you were initially making was that you didn't want a PC running at night playing music consuming 1200W. The fact is it won't be using anywhere near that when doing that.

Hughes123:According to my wall watt meter thing, it was drawing (whilst I loaded Flight Sim X) 1097watts.
 
chebby:What is the point?

Is this some overgrown boy-racer thing like people who put 5000 watt sound systems into Vauxhall Novas?

Yes.
 
matthewpiano:trevor79:Hughes123:Tony_R:
Wow I must be slow today - there were no less than 5 other posts whilst I was writing mine.

This is the Sony player I was referring to.

Tony.

Okay, I'm going to see if I can demo one of those (my local Sony shop will have one hopefully!)

PjPro, my soundcard is a Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro.

I would point you to the Sony RDR970 which has a 250g HD, plus upscales TV to 1080p, it has been given 5 stars by the What Hi-Fi team.
Can be had for £300ish.

Will never buy a CD player again.

RDR-HXD995 now. Has replaced the 970 but, apart from the addition of a card slot is a very similar machine. I've just got one. Not using it for audio but its a cracking piece of kit that I've purchased confidently having sold many 970s and 995s.

Watchoo doin' with it then, Willis?
 
I got the feeling that he was just trying to impress us (as usual) as well.

al7478:chebby:What is the point? Is this some overgrown boy-racer thing like people who put 5000 watt sound systems into Vauxhall Novas? Yes.
 
al7478:chebby:What is the point?

Is this some overgrown boy-racer thing like people who put 5000 watt sound systems into Vauxhall Novas?

Yes.

I've stayed away from the Cerwin Vegas, the Novas, the "Happy Hardcore" and the Burberry/Tracksuit...being fifteen, am I not entitled to something just a little chavvy?
 
Breeder:
That's great but the point you were initially making was that you didn't want a PC running at night playing music consuming 1200W. The fact is it won't be using anywhere near that when doing that.

Hughes123:According to my wall watt meter thing, it was drawing (whilst I loaded Flight Sim X) 1097watts.

Thno it would if gaming at the same time, presumably...hey, im just talkin...
 
OK. If I'm honest, my relatively low powered (18mth old) PC is a bit of a noisy beggar. Why? HDD reading mostly.....anti-virus and spyware software trawling through my system files. Not a problem when you're wearing headphones. Not good with speakers.
 
Hughes123:
al7478:chebby:What is the point?

Is this some overgrown boy-racer thing like people who put 5000 watt sound systems into Vauxhall Novas?

Yes.

I've stayed away from the Cerwin Vegas, the Novas, the "Happy Hardcore" and the Burberry/Tracksuit...being fifteen, am I not entitled to something just a little chavvy?

No.

If we said "bless, he's only little", you would quite rightly claim we were patronising you.

Lordy I'm on a roll with all these straight answers to straight questions. Anymoreferanymore?
 
Am I the only person wondering how a 15 year old can afford to be buying all this expensive hifi etc all the time?
 
I'm very very split on this issue. I agree wholeheartedly with Hughes about the whole experience of putting a CD or LP on, and I love the process of flicking through my physical collection of music to find what I fancy listening to. For the first time I'm now extremely happy with the sound I'm getting from CD. The Denon kit is really getting the very best out of the format, and with the added benefit of reading the SACD layer on the discs that offer it.

However, I also have a squeezebox which I run through my system, served by a choice of either a desktop PC or my HP laptop. With files ripped at high or lossless rates it sounds brilliant and the user interface on the squeezebox is extremely nice. The Acer tower is a bit noisy, but the HP laptop runs very very quietly indeed. There are some albums I don't necessarily want to give shelf space to but still want in my music collection and this is how I am currently using computer based music. I can see my use expanding over time and I do think its all very exciting. I'll never abandon physical formats for my favourite music, but I'm very open to future developments if they can make more music accessible to me and make those little voyages of discovery easier.
 

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts